Can't tell much without a photo; the "swapper/0 not tainted" is not the error, swapper denotes the process (it is often a false positive) and the not tainted just means you don't run proprietary drivers. So, you could try to compile the hard disk controller (IDE / ATA / PATA / SATA / AHCI / ...) into the kernel (=Y) as well as the file system; also make sure you have CONFIG_TMPFS=Y, CONFIG_DEVTMPFS=Y and CONFIG_DEVTMPFS_MOUNT=Y.

That's indeed root failing to mount. As my previous suggestions don't seem to work; you could try genkernel, but given that you are on a different distribution you can find support at https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewforum.php?id=22

In the future, please use a service that allows serving plain text over HTTP, like, say, pastebin, then linking the raw text link here. This makes immediate handling of the file quite much easier.

Did you just copy an Arch Linux kernel config? Do you have any idea of how Arch packages their kernels? With initrds, maybe? If so, did you do the same on the gentoo side?

Why did you decide to copy a config from Arch Linux?

Please share:

- lspci -k of a working kernel (livecd?)
- the kernel commandline; even better, the bootloader configuration for that kernel (including eventual initrd lines).

My guess is that you copied a config from Arch, which may provide pre-built kernels with initrds with lots of modules, and just compiled the kernel on the gentoo side, skipping an initrd and using a kernel with no builtin drivers to handle either the I/O controller which gives you access to the HDD or the filesystem / uses.

but finally by the pressure of my superstition I also compiled ext3 and ext2 in the kernel.
i have also Xchecked the supported partition types - those should work._________________Quis custodiet ipsos, custodes?

So,
after changing grub to /dev/sdb kernel finally loaded - putting a lot of messages on screen - and and the system started, because fstab has the UUIDs and not the /dev/sdxxx identifiers.

however, with UUID in grub it is still falling into panic, and the kernel I use normally finds the HDD as /dev/sda - and loads a way faster. strange, because blkid /dev/sdb2 ( for example ) is properly returning the UUID for that partition - which is also correct in grub.cfg

My guessing is that the problem is somewhere with the way kernel reads from BIOS, but warm thanx for any suggestions._________________Quis custodiet ipsos, custodes?

It still seems to have some issues, however, as grub still complains about not finding the root partition, but after hitting a key, the kernel starts to load slowly, and then suddenly all is ok. I guess the root of the evil is in deeper domains, but that is not the story of the tainted ( or untainted ) swap.
Thanx for the help._________________Quis custodiet ipsos, custodes?